NEWSMIDDLE EAST

Saudi women will soon drive to Subaru and deliver their petition. Can they add your name?

This week, a group of Saudi women are once again defying the driving ban -- this time to drive to Saudi Subaru and hand-deliver their Change.org petition asking the company to stop selling cars in a country where women are forbidden to drive.

The effort will expose these brave women to tremendous personal risk: Since Saudi women launched their right-to-drive campaign on June 17, threats against women activists -- in mosques, on the street, and in the media -- have been growing at a scary pace. But it's a cause they believe in.

More than 50,000 people around the world have already signed the petition to reinforce Saudi women’s resolve and courage -- and remind Saudi Arabia and Subaru that the world is watching.

High Representative and European Commission Vice President Catherine Ashton formally responds to Saudi women’s Change.org campaigns asking her to support for Saudi women’s right to drive; calls on Saudi Arabia to implement UN anti-discrimination convention.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has called on Saudi Arabia to implement an international women’s rights convention in a letter to Saudi women fighting for the right to drive.

The letter, signed July 6 and received by Saudi Women for Driving on Wednesday, directly calls on Saudi Arabia to implement the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, a rare statement of criticism for such a senior diplomat.

Activists launch Change.org campaign after State Department spokesperson refuses to condemn the detentions of women for driving in Saudi Arabia.

Women’s rights activists are up in arms after the U.S. State Department refused to condemn the detention of Saudi women arrested and detained for driving.

Mark C. Toner, a State Department spokesperson, was repeatedly questioned during a State Department briefing on Thursday about the United States’ position on the arrest and detention of a number of Saudi women for driving earlier this week. In response, Mr. Toner refused to condemn such detentions, depicting the arrests as an internal issue.

When a reporter asked “What do you make of the fact that the Saudi religious police are running around, plucking women out of cars?” the State Department spokesperson replied by framing the issue as “an internal matter for Saudi Arabia.”

When a reporter asked “Do you think that it’s a good thing that the Saudi religious police are taking women out of cars when they’re driving and arresting them?” the State Department spokesperson replied “This is an issue that Saudi Arabians are grappling with.”

Finally, when a reporter asked “You won’t come out and say that it’s a bad thing for the religious police to be detaining women who are driving?” the spokesperson replied. “I’ve given you the details as I know them, which is that they were detained and then later released. They were never formally charged. So I don’t want to pump too much air into this.”

Female driver surrounded by four police cars in dramatic, nighttime arrest; Saudi Women for Driving responds with emergency call on Change.org to free those arrested.

Saudi Arabian police arrested five women for driving on Tuesday for the first time since dozens of women began testing the ban on driving on June 17, according to reports by local Saudi media.

In one incident, first reported on Facebook by Saudi journalist Jamal Banoon, four young women driving in the Dorat Al Aroos area of Jeddah were arrested by agents of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia’s religious police. The women were taken to a criminal investigations unit. In a second incident that night a woman driving in downtown Jeddah was suddenly surrounded by four police cars and taken into custody for driving. Her car was confiscated, according to the conservative Saudi news site SABQ. It is not clear whether or not the five women are still in detention, and there have been no reports of their whereabouts since.

The incidents mark a significant departure from the hands-off approach Saudi police have taken since women’s rights activists launched a nationwide right-to-drive campaign on June 17.

Top EU diplomat responds to Saudi women’s Change.org campaigns asking her to publicly declare support for Saudi women’s right to drive.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton publicly declared her support for Saudi women’s right to drive campaigns late Wednesday after more than 7,000 people in all EU states joined a Change.org campaign calling on her to stand with the Saudi women.

In a statement released by a spokesperson for the High Representative and European Commission Vice President, HRVP Ashton described the Saudi women fighting for the right to drive as “courageous.”

“The EU supports people who stand up for their right to equal treatment, wherever they are. The Saudi women who are taking to the road are exercising their right to demand that equality. They are courageous and have the High Representative's support.”

The statement came one day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly praised the Saudi women’s right to drive campaigns:

"What these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right... I'm moved by it [the campaign] and I support them."

Ashton’s support concludes a month of campaigning by Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics, which directly called on both HRVP Ashton and Clinton to make a public statement in support of Saudi women’s right to drive on Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing platform for social change.

Top U.S. diplomat responds to Saudi women’s campaigns on Change.org asking her to publicly declare support for Saudi women’s right to drive.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly declared her support for Saudi women’s right to drive campaigns on Tuesday.

"What these women are doing is brave, and what they are seeking is right," Clinton said. “I'm moved by it [the campaign] and I support them."

The statement comes after Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics, directly called on Secretary Clinton to make a public statement in support of Saudi women’s right to drive on Change.org, the world’s fastest-growing platform for social change.

On Monday State spokesperson Victoria Nuland responded to the Saudi women’s calls by saying Clinton was engaged in “quiet diplomacy” and had raised the issue privately with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal.

Saudi Women for Driving pushed back on that approach, telling Clinton that “quiet diplomacy is not what we need right now.”

Saudi Women for Driving, a coalition of leading Saudi women’s rights activists, bloggers and academics campaigning for the right to drive, sent the following response to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday.

Dear Secretary Clinton,

We trust that you have received our letters, dated June 3 and June 20, asking you to make a public statement supporting our right to drive.

At yesterday’s State Department briefing, spokesperson Victoria Nuland said [transcript below] you have been advocating for our right to drive through “quiet diplomacy,” specifically by speaking about it with HE Prince Saud Al-Faisal on Friday. “There are times when it makes sense to do so publicly and there are times for quiet diplomacy," she said.

We greatly appreciate your efforts to raise the status of women with his excellency, and your many years of advocacy on behalf of women all over the world. However, given the events of the past month, we are disappointed by this approach.

Secretary Clinton: quiet diplomacy is not what we need right now. What we need is for you, personally, to make a strong, simple and public statement supporting our right to drive.